


Lamb and Leftovers

by amaradangeli



Series: We Made It [9]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cooking, Episode: s04e10 Beneath the Surface, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaradangeli/pseuds/amaradangeli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of Beneath the Surface, Jack and Sam discuss how things have changed.<br/><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamb and Leftovers

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse

It was dark when she showed up with lamb chops. "It was either lamb or pork," she said nervously like he cared one way or the other what they were having. He was just glad to see her, to have her close wearing something other than orange quilted pajamas. He fingered her new short haircut. Secretly, he preferred it shorter, not that he'd tell her that at this juncture.

"That's fine."

"I didn't even know where to look for the mint stuff, but I-"

"Sam," he said and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, "it's fine."

She apparently felt as discombobulated as he did. It was freeing to be on that damned planet, hidden away in the machinery rooms, able to talk and touch as they pleased. He kicked himself over and over again for not taking the opportunity to take her to bed - or bunk, as the case might have been - but it had felt both new and familiar in turns and there just never seemed to be the right moment. A lost moment, as it turned out. He wished the memory stamps worked in reverse. He wished he didn't remember their time together, the sweet way she'd touch him so casually, the way he couldn't even get her to touch him first when they were alone together. Though, in all fairness, the thing they were doing was rather new.

She leaned into him a little, the way she did when they were stamped and it felt so right to just pull her into his chest. It didn't feel wrong, it didn't feel forbidden, it didn't even feel other-worldly when he took the lamb from her and put it on the counter so he could pull her flush against him until he could feel her breathing against his throat. There was some measure of comfort in knowing that the thing between them wasn't tenuous, that it was something hardwired into both of them.

"It's all just fine," he said into her hair.

"Then why doesn't it feel fine?"

"Feels fine to me," he said giving her a little squeeze.

She thumped him on the back, "Jack!"

"No, really," he said disarmingly. "Tell me this feels wrong."

She contemplated on it then decided, "I can't." She ran her hands from his shoulder blades down to the small of his back. "This is what we've been missing."

"We agreed no more nights like the porch."

"Well, I'm disagreeing now. Besides, there's a lot between this,"she held him tighter, "and the heat."

"You sure that's what you want?" It was what he wanted, especially after feeling the way she pressed against him on that planet when it didn't matter, the way she'd slid her tongue into his mouth like it was normal. "This? The in-between? The... heat?"

She pressed herself closer against him. "I'm sure." Her body remembered even if she wouldn't let her brain.

She shifted and he couldn't help the way he went hard at the pressure her words and her body exerted on his. She didn't back away, she didn't acknowledge it bodily in any way. She hummed low in the back of her throat, "I like you this way," she said and just exhaled against him.

He liked it too. Liked what generally came next even more, but he did like the way she felt pressed up against his erection. "Me too." She felt so soft against him, against all of him.

"You want to talk about it?"

"What?" she asked him. "This?" and pressed her hips against his. "Or the planet?"

He chuckled. "Either?"

"No," she sighed. "But we should."

"Okay," he said and tightened his hold on her.

"It's just, I think we said it all already."

"Sir," he said quietly against her ear.

"Out there," she agreed. "Here? Jack."

"I like it here."

"Me too. Here is better."

"For this? It is."

"But there are good things about out there, too," she reminded him.

"It's getting harder to remember that."

"We can't forget. We belong out there."

"It feels like we belong in here, too."

"It does," she agreed.

"Want to cook dinner?" he asked her.

"In a minute," she said and shifted against him until he was nestled between her legs.

He enjoyed it for a few heartbeats and a gentle press into the apex of her thighs then told her, "This is dangerous."

"Doesn't feel dangerous."

But it did. He could feel the way they fit together so perfectly. He pressed into her again and she mewled into his ear. He did it again and she shuddered. If he kept on, it could get out of hand, fast. "Come on," he said with a squeeze, "let's cook."

He set her to work cutting up a salad while he heated an iron skillet to searing. The planet, it had removed a barrier between them that he hadn't even really known was there. He'd always known and trusted his better judgement, but the lines were starting to blur. She made them blur.

While he waited for the pan he poured them wine. She accepted hers with a murmured thanks that made his belly go warm and hollow with her tone. He dropped a kiss to her shoulder that shot his memory back to the planet and a similar moment and went back to check his pan. Not quite searing heat, but if he stayed on her side of the kitchen, he probably wouldn't have walked away with that one kiss. But when he turned to look at her she was smiling at a tomato and it made him smile, too.

They worked in silence for a while, she finished the salad and he seared the lamb chops to a perfect medium rare. At the table she watched him set the plates down and finally asked him, "Do you wish things had gone further on the planet?"

"Do you?" he asked her when he wasn't sure how to answer.

"No," she said definitively. "When it happens, I want it to be you and me, not...other people."

"It was always you and me," he told her.

"Yeah, but not really. Do you think it's strange that even there we-"

"No. I think it would always be you."

"Like in the alternate realties?"

"Yeah," he said, a gruff edge to his voice with the understanding that no matter what, no matter when or where, when she came into the picture he was always going to be drawn to her. He wanted to hear her say the same, but he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. He wasn't sure if it was not believing the same or not trusting herself, but the uncertainty was there nonetheless. "It's okay to not be sure."

"I'm sure," she said quietly. "I'm sure about you. I'm just not sure about what we're doing here."

He panicked a little. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... we're doing so much wrong."

"It's worth it to me."

"It's worth it to me, too. I just hope you still think it's worth it if things go wrong."

"It'll still be worth it." He knew what he was telling her. And he believed it.

His certainty made her settle back into her chair. "Then okay."

"That's all you needed to hear? That they could throw the reg book at me and I wouldn't regret it?"

"Yeah. Is that bad?"

"No. But I worry about the same thing."

"Me too," she said quietly.

"You've got a lot to lose," he told her.

"So do you."

He shrugged, "Not like you."

"It's just...it's going to be so much harder now."

"How?"

"Out there! Now that we know what it feels like, now that  _here_  we can touch," she reached out and threaded her fingers through his," now that we  _know._ How do we hide this?"

"The same way we've been hiding it. Just because we know more now doesn't mean we feel differently than we did weeks ago." He had to be honest with himself about how his feelings blindsided him, he felt the same way a lot time ago even if he didn't want to admit it yet.

"Weeks ago our friends hadn't seen the way we can be together."

"I don't know. Do you?"

"No," he said surely, "I don't. They don't know anything, Sam, not anything about the way things are here."

"Do we need to talk about this now?"

He shook his head, "No." And he was a little glad to drop the line of conversation he'd brought up. Part of him was happy that she was unsure. She had a bright and shining career in front of her and he didn't want to take it from her. But he wasn't going to walk away from her either. She'd have to do the walking if it ever came to it. She'd sewn herself up inside him when he wasn't even looking. And he could be the one who loved her more. He knew he could. He already was. She might have fallen first, but he'd always been the one to fall harder. And just because they didn't talk about it didn't make it true.

"How's your lamb?" he asked her.

"It's good," she said with a nod, but she just pushed it around her plate. "I... I don't really like lamb," she confessed then she smiled a little.

It made him laugh. "Well, why the hell'd you bring it, then?"

"Well, we had pork last time and-"

He leaned across the table and kissed her because he had to check the urge to tell her he loved her. She was soft and warm against his mouth. He didn't open her up with his tongue even though she moved like she wanted him to. Even though he could. In only this one place he could, but still, he held back, hoping to save the next taste of what they had on that planet for a night that wasn't tinged with insecurity.

He pulled away from her. "You will always keep me guessing, you know that?" He stood up and took her plate from her. "There's leftover Chinese from last night. You want cashew chicken or beef and broccoli?"

She pretended to think about it but he pulled the cashew chicken out of the fridge and stuck it in the microwave.

"Chicken," she finally decided.

"Chicken it is," he said and pressed the minute button on the microwave. No matter when, or where, or how, he knew her. Would always know her. She made him feel like something greater and he wanted it, wanted her. And she wanted him, too. The microwave dinged and he pulled out her dinner and picked up the bottle of wine off the counter.

Things might be a little uncertain, but they were going to be okay. So he told her that.

"I do worry that the planet changed everything," she told him.

"Maybe it did, but I don't think it necessarily changed things in a bad way."

"You're sure we're not going to have problems? General Hammond must have some idea how things were between us. Everyone turned in a mission report."

"I've seen all the reports, Sam. They didn't mention it and neither did we."

"They didn't?"

"What was there to mention? That they saw us sitting together?"

"You really don't think they knew?"

"I really don't. But I think if they did, they will keep it to themselves. You think Daniel doesn't know the regs? He's read his contract cover to cover and he's a smart guy - he can put two and two together. If Teal'c was going to say something don't you think he would have already? And have you ever known Teal'c to say something that he didn't think was completely necessary?"

"No."

"Then stop worrying. Here is here and out there is... out there," he finished lamely.

"What if I slip?"

"You won't."

"But-"

"Sam, you won't."

He was sure of it. If anyone was going to slip, it would be him. Like next time he had to make a decision to save her or to save them all. He'd have a moment, he knew he would. He liked to think he was a good enough leader to save them all. And he'd die trying.

"Don't do anything stupid," she said as if she could read his mind.

"I'm not making any promises," he said, but he grinned to soften the truth. "Look, it's not going to be easy, but we'll do it because we have to. We can't have this and not be our best out there. We both know we're crossing some lines, and because we know it'll be fine."

"As long as it's hard we're doing okay?" she asked.

"I think that's the way it works."

"We're not the first," she said.

"And we won't be the last."

"I never thought it would be me."

"I never thought it would be you, either. But I'm the lucky sonuvabitch that isn't going looking gift horses in the mouth."

"I'm lucky, too."

"I'm glad you feel that way. Because that's the only thing that's going to make it any easier. I'm happy things didn't go further on the planet, too."

"Yeah?"

"When you make the decision, Sam, I want to know you went into it eyes wide open."

"My eyes are open," she said and he wondered exactly what she was telling him. But, he'd wait to find out. He'd wait until things weren't muddled by what had already happened and until she'd had a chance to fully process what they'd decided. Screwing the regs was no small decision, and despite everything they'd discussed before, the big decisions had just been made.

"Keep 'em open, Sam," he said. "Because things are going to keep changing."

She pushed the cashew chicken around in the carton with the tines of her fork. "For the better, I think."

"Definitely," he said and took another bite of his lamb. He was going to have to buy more wine. A lot more wine. Because things were changing, for the better, for sure.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta, Fems, who helped me work through the story structure. All the good stuff is because she asked for it, all the mistakes are mine alone.


End file.
